The products of Siam, as may be supposed from its range of latitude, its tropical heats, its variety of climate, and the fertility of the valley, annually renewed by the inundation, are very diversified, and almost unlimited in quantity. Its rice, of which there are forty varieties, is excellent, and its sugar is esteemed the best in the world. Among the other exports are cotton, tobacco, hemp, cutch, dried fish and fruits, cocoanut-oil, beeswax, precious gums, spices, dye and other woods, especially teak, ivory, and many articles too numerous to mention. The mineral riches of the country are still almost entirely in an undeveloped state. The search for sparkling gems has in all ages been eagerly engaged in; diamonds and other precious stones are frequently offered for sale, but the precise locality in which they are found is kept secret by the natives. The thousand-fold more valuable seams of coal and iron have remained unsought and most imperfectly worked as yet. A beginning has at last been made by the present king, and the last and best, though poetically maligned, age of iron is about to spread its blessings over the Siamese Empire. The population of Siam cannot be ascertained with correctness, owing to the custom of enumerating only the men. When I was in Bangkok, the native registers gave the number of them as four million Siamese, one million Laotians, one million Malays and Indians, one million five hundred thousand Chinese, three hundred and fifty thousand Cambodians, fifty thousand Peguans, and the same number of mountain tribes; in all, nearly eight millions. If these figures are even approximately correct, and the women and children bear the same proportion to the men as in other countries, the total population of Siam far exceeds the numbers which have hitherto been assigned to it.